Homebrewed Christianity

The Stone Lives #LectioCast

Jesus. This week is all about Jesus. Jesus reconfiguring the identity of the people of God. Jesus receiving God’s vindication in the face of humanity’s rejection of him. Jesus holding the identity that we get to share in: living stones, the one in whom the father is at work so that the father might be glorified.

Acts 7:55-60 Stephen relives the Jesus story: condemned as a blasphemer of the Temple, he raises the ire of the leadership by proclaiming Jesus as the son of man at God’s right hand. He entrusts his spirit to God even as he forgives his persecutors in the face of death. Jesus’s followers are little Christs.

Psalm 31:1-5, 15-16 Shame is found in abandonment. Honor and exaltation are found in deliverance. The New Testament’s boldest move is to claim honor and exaltation for those who go to death in service of God.

1 Peter 2:2-10 Children who long for the milk that begot them, little Christs who are living stones like Jesus, priests who minister spiritual sacrifices that replace the Temple. A multi-faceted articulation of our identity as the people of God, with a little supersessionism thrown in for good measure.

John 14:1-14 Knowing Jesus is knowing God. And knowing Jesus is knowing the one and only way to God. And knowing Jesus being made into the likeness of Jesus and God so that God will be glorified by what we do. It’s all very confusing.